Using Dual Stream

[sethlocks 0]

Is it possible to stream one channel of an IP camera(looking at ACTi TCM-3411) to the NVR, and have one channel either stream video to a website, or be accessible via Internet Explorer or iPhone/Android? I have a project at a condo building, and they want to record the front door camera, yet have a web login to view live images.

 

Sorry if this is rudimentary, but I have never done this before.

 

Thanks for any help,

Seth

[bike_rider 0]

Yes, that's what dual streaming means. Not just two connections, but 2 different video feed settings, usually of different quality. So you have the NVR connect to the high quality stream and a web page or smart phone connect to the lower quality stream.

[sethlocks 0]

Thank you for the response. That is what I thought it meant, but I have never set it up. I will pick up a Vivotek to try out, as it looks relatively inexpensive. Lets see what I find out.

[WilsonJ 0]

If you have a NVR already, why don't you pull the video stream from the recorder instead of pulling dual stream from the camera? The advantage of viewing from the recorder is you will avoid clogging the bandwidth between the recorder and the camera which might lower the quality of video recorded. I know most of the NVR such as Qnap supports multi-stream live view while recording.

[MaxIcon 0]

This works well for me with my 1MP Vivoteks. Stream 1 is set for max resolution and quality and goes to the NVRs. Stream 2 is set for lower resolution with the same full-frame picture, and goes to web browsers for people who want to have a smaller window up on a monitor. Stream 3 is a cell phone resolution. If the PC users want to switch to higher resolution, the Vivotek web page has a quick and easy drop-down for it, and it takes a few seconds to switch between streams.

 

All 3 streams are independently adjustable for encoding format, quality, size, FPS, etc, while some cams restrict secondary streams depending on how the primary stream is set. I've never seen any effect on the frame rate from multiple streams being read, which isn't the case on some of my other cams.

 

We don't use the NVR streams because they have a bunch of other cams that aren't of interest to the desktop viewers, and the 2 NVRs I'm running aren't that flexible in terms of reducing screen clutter at the client end.

 

ETA: I forgot to mention the 4th stream. I don't routinely use it, but generally set it up when I'm comparing between various stream settings; for instance, comparing H.264 full res vs MJPEG. This makes it quick and easy to switch between two settings by selecting the streams.

Edited February 29, 2012 by Guest

[ando 0]

Dual stream is designed to have 1 of each streams from the camera. To have 1 high quality stream for NVR and then an uncontrollable amount of low quality streams for web or phone solutions (depending on number of users) may put the camera at risk, as they are not designed to be servers for multiple users, regardless of the manufacturer. Of course, if you have a media server running on your web server, then it can take care of the stream distribution.

 

The most common usage of dual stream is to reduce the CPU and memory loading of NVR server PC that handles a large amount of channels (~32 or more). While recording process of NVR may take less than 10% of computer resources (even with 64 channels), it is the decoding (NVR live view display) or transcoding (for mobile clients, etc.) of the videos for live view that consumes PC resources badly. With the rapid growth of "pixels" in IP surveillance, a PC industry is having hard time catching up with us. Even the best affordable computers (i7 generation) might have difficulties to encode 64 channels of Multi-megapixel H.264 streams, regardless of NVR vendor. It is where the dual stream comes handy. By taking a good use of CPU in each camera, it is possible to generate streams for recording and live view purposes.

 

ACTi TCM and KCM series cameras all support dual stream. I believe many other manufacturers have dual stream, too.